Event gives spotlight to love of mountains, local artists

By Kayla Phelps

Artists will gather once again at Al’s Bar to share their work and support peace in the mountains.

The “Holler 11: Poets for Peace in the Mountains” will be at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Al’s Bar, at the corner of Sixth Street and North Limestone. Eric Sutherland, a Lexington poet, has hosted the monthly series since May 2008.

While the event is free, it supports the work of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, a state grassroots organization.

Featured artists include Silas House, Erik Reece, George Ella Lyon, Jason Howard and Kentucky Poet Laureate Jane Gentry Vance, with music by Karly Dawn Higgins and Public Outcry.

House, a Kentucky author best known for his novels, will be reading from “Something’s Rising,” a collection of oral histories from individuals fighting mountaintop removal from Kentucky, West Virginia, Tennessee and Virginia.

In mountaintop removal mining, tops and sides of mountains are blasted off to get at the underlying coal seams. House said it causes disruption of peace and quiet in the mountains from pollution and constant blasting.

“I just want to let people know that the land and the people are suffering, and that we can do something about it if we stand together,” he said.

House said he thinks it’s important to target students in the Lexington area because they “have the whole world at the tips of their fingers and they can make a change if they believe in something.”

“I think that once people know all about mountaintop removal, they’ll be so disgusted by it that they’ll do something to stand up to big corporate greed,” he said.